Academics

At a campus wide program at Pacific Union College May 3, Sister Helen Prejean, the noted social activist and author of Dead Man Walking, called for the end of the death penalty and a shift in focus from retributive to redemptive justice. Prejean’s appearance in the Napa Valley comes less than two weeks after an initiative to end the death penalty in California qualified to appear on the ballot in the upcoming November election. “The Supreme Court says that the death penalty should only be reserved for the worst of the worst murder cases—but how in the Sam Hill do we know which is the worst of the worst?” said the Louisiana-born nun who was portrayed by Susan Sarandon in a 1995 film based on her book. “Every murder is the worst of the worst…we don’t even know how to apply the standards.” A nun in the Congregation of St. Joseph, Prejean called attention to what she sees as an extreme paradox—the religious justification for executing criminals and the merciful figure of Jesus Christ found in the Bible. “We have gotten ourselves to a point in this country where we try to make violence redemptive,” she said. “Nothing could be...

Pacific Union College celebrated its annual Green Week, focusing on sustainable living in all aspects of life through a full week of programming, April 15-20. This is the fifth year of the event—a partnership between the PUC Green Club and the office of student services. The week features events designed to help the campus community shift to more sustainable practices. The week was scheduled to lead up to worldwide celebrations of Earth Day 2012 on April 22. “Earth Day is an international event to promote safeguarding the environment,” explains Darlene Teddy, president of the PUC Green Club and a junior environmental studies student. “Green Week is PUC’s way of being involved; we use the week to educate students about being green and to be aware of the environment. It's all about education and awareness.” Themes were planned for each day promoting sustainability. On Monday, hundreds of students across campus wore green to celebrate the kickoff of Green Week. The next day, students were encouraged to unplug unused chargers and turnoff light switches for "Turn-off Tuesday." The club also used silk-screen printing to create free reusable tote bags imprinted with “Going Green—Pacific Union College,” as an effort to reduce plastic waste....

Pacific Union College is unveiling two new academic programs available for students in the 2012-2013 school year. In the fall, the department of visual arts will begin offering aspiring artists a new bachelor of fine arts while the department of mathematics is spearheading a new interdisciplinary biomathematics major for students interested in both mathematics and biology. PUC’s new bachelor of fine arts (BFA) program offers a professional degree with a unique combination of graphic design, fine art, photography, and film and television production in a comprehensive BFA degree. “We’re all really excited about the program,” says Milbert Mariano, chair of the department of visual arts. “It’s a more professional degree that prepares students to either go on to graduate school or be a professional in those areas due to the intensity of the program.” The BFA curriculum will be more focused on core visual arts classes than those of the BA and BS programs offered by the department. To facilitate the larger focus on departmental classes, students in the program will have a reduced general education requirement. BFA-track students will focus about 20 percent of their classes on art history or art criticism to gain a greater depth of knowledge...

Award winning TV journalist Christof Putzel will speak at Pacific Union College’s Communication Honor Society Symposium on Friday, May 4, at 12 p.m. in Scales Chapel. Putzel will discuss his journey as a reporter, share some of the most intriguing stories from the front lines, and field questions during a Q & A segment. Admission is free. The symposium will begin with an episode screening of Vanguard, a documentary series highlighting global and social issues. Vanguard is one of the top shows on Current TV—a progressive television network co-founded by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt in 2005. Putzel, one of the show’s three correspondents, serves as a guide who takes viewers on a journey into some of the most dangerous parts of the world. Vanguard’s current season features Putzel investigating drug cartels in Mexico, the Occupy Wall Street movement in Zuccotti Park, and the famous “Smoking Baby” in Indonesia. A third-generation news reporter, Putzel has been nominated for three Emmy Awards and won an Alfred I. duPont Award, a Livingston Award, a National Headliner Awards and two Webby Awards. His work has appeared on ABC’s Nightline, Good Morning America, CBC, and the Sundance Channel. “We’re thrilled about the opportunity to...

Vola Andrianarijaona, a professor of physics at Pacific Union College and a winner of a grant from the National Science Foundation, recently returned from a research trip to Tennessee’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, one of the world’s top experimental physics laboratories. His subject: charge transfer of astroparticles, a largely unexplored area of physics with a broad range of both theoretical and practical applications. “I chose to focus on these particles because no one else is doing them, because they’re too difficult,” says Andrianarijaona. That’s no idle boast. The particles within the scope of Vola’s research—specifically ion-neutral molecular hydrogen—simply do not exist in Earth’s normal environment, and only occur naturally in the near-vacuum of space and the extreme upper atmosphere. The resources to simulate the conditions required in Andrianarijaona’s research exist in only a handful of facilities in the world—including Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee; and the Université catholique de Louvain in Belgium. The physicist has spent much of the last few months gravitating between those facilities, pushing forward on cutting edge experiments. Several of the techniques he is using are so revolutionary that they don’t even have a name, including one apparatus in Belgium that he himself designed and...

Sister Helen Prejean, social activist and author, will speak about her ministry at Pacific Union College’s Colloquy Speaker Series May 3. Prejean’s ministry focuses on the moral dilemma of the death penalty and her proactive efforts to abolish the death penalty in the United States. Prejean began her work in prison ministry in 1981 when she became pen pals with Louisiana death row inmate Patrick Sonnier. She became Sonnier’s spiritual advisor, while at the same time learning more about the execution process. Prejean witnessed Sonnier’s execution in the electric chair April 5, 1984. Her resulting book—Dead Man Walking: An Eyewitness Account of the Death Penalty in the United States—became a New York Times bestseller, was nominated for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize, and was subsequently made into a major motion picture nominated for four Academy Awards and ultimately winning Susan Sarandon the 1995 Oscar for Best Actress. Prejean will give her presentation May 3 at 10 a.m. in the PUC Church Sanctuary. Admission is free. ...

Since 2008, the Green Club has been active on the PUC campus promoting environmentally friendly practices and working to educate students about what it means to “be green.” The rise of the club has been accompanied by several other green movements—a major in environmental studies and the club’s annual hosting of Green Week. “The mission for Green Club is primarily to promote environmental awareness among the students, faculty, and staff at PUC,” says Darlene Teddy, Green Club president. “We try to promote choosing the environmentally friendly option and educate them about the ways that they can be green in their everyday life.” The club has already been active this year on campus with several events. In February, they ran a film series about important environmental issues. “The movies that we've chosen are what we thought would be most relevant to college students or things that the average college student deals with,” says Teddy. Food, Inc., Tapped, Fuel, and The Cove played in the Campus Center, and the viewings were open to all students. The club has also been involved with the student body by putting up flyers around campus with facts and suggestions to help students be more environmentally conscious....

Over 20 Pacific Union College students gave up their spring break to work on construction, health, and education projects on a service trip to Empalme De Boaco, Nicaragua, March 23-31. The trip is part of a partnership between PUC and Developing Communities, Inc., a non-profit group founded in 1988 by PUC alumnus Jake Scheideman. In Empalme de Boaco, students worked with locals to rebuild and renovate the town’s clinic, which had fallen into disrepair. While providing care for residents’ basic health needs, the clinic will also serve as a base of operations for future medical work as Developing Communities and PUC pursue a long-term commitment to the town. “Initially, I heard it was a medical trip; I wanted to go and get some experience,” said sophomore pre-med biology student Meena Kim. “Then they told us we were building a clinic. Regardless of whether I would be doing the actual medical work, I went because we would be providing the assets and the means for them to better their healthcare system.” At the clinic, the students worked with residents of Empalme De Boaco to replace the building’s old tin roof, which had been damaged by a bat infestation. The group also...

For many students, spring break means sunny beaches, fun with friends, quality time with family, or maybe just a quiet week of relaxation. For about 19 Pacific Union College students, however, it meant a week of hard work on a service trip to the former Bennet Freeze in the Navajo Nation, near Flagstaff, Arizona. The trip, which took place from March 23-31, was planned by the Pacific Union College chapter of Project Pueblo, a student-run organization founded at the University of California at Berkeley in 2009. The organization aims to help alleviate the effects of the Bennet Freeze and improve living conditions in the Navajo Nation. This is the second PUC Project Pueblo trip; the first took place over winter break. “The trip helped people restore their homes after the lifting of the Freeze in 2009,” explained Lorie Johns, PUC’s nursing student success advisor, who accompanied students on the trip. “It’s about supporting people as they are working to rebuild and better their living situation.” The Bennet Freeze was a federal policy enacted in 1966 prohibiting any building—even basic repairs—on a 1.5 million-acres portion of Navajo territory.The Freeze resulted in decades of crumbling infrastructure in the affected areas and was...

At Thursday morning’s Faculty Awards Colloquy, PUC business professor Lary Taylor was named Educator of the Year. This is the third time Taylor has won the award—an unprecedented feat in PUC history. The Educator of the Year is decided by student vote, and the results are a closely guarded secret in the weeks between the balloting and the Colloquy program. Professor emeritus of chemistry Bill Hemmerlin, a longtime friend and colleague of Taylor’s, introduced the award, revealing the winner gradually with a series of childhood photos and biographical hints. As the final clue was revealed, Taylor stood and approached the stage with good-humored reluctance as the church audience rose to applaud the repeat honoree. Academic dean Nancy Lecourt presented him with a framed certificate, and then he took a seat on the dais as Hemmerlin delivered a teasing roast of his friend. Later in the program, business department colleagues Wally Lighthouse and John Nunes and business students Chris Madrid and Kelly Chung presented tributes to the professor. Each speaker highlighted the major factor that keeps students voting for Taylor again and again: his warm and welcoming attitude to those around him. “Simply put, my friend Professor Lary Taylor has an...